Research Project – bexODESSA

Haring and thereing

CSM MFA - Progress Blog, Painting, Research Project, Week in Review

On Saturday evening, my fella and I went hare shooting, of the photographic variety. We knew exactly where to go, as we’d often spotted hares there as we were driving past. Sure enough, almost as soon as we got out of the car we started seeing hares, and to our great delight we also saw some boxing, as they are apt to do in March. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get very close before they sniffed us out and ran away. Luckily, my fella’s camera is a good’n, so he was able to get these lovely shots (as well as the money-shot above).

Speaking of lagomorphs, yesterday we found a distressed bunny on the side of the road who was ridden with myxomatosis. We moved him somewhere more comfortable and let nature take its course, which mercifully didn’t take long. We left him to have one last night under the stars and then gave him a good send off today.

Along with all my hare-fancying and rabbit-burying, I have been painting Manx cats. According to local folklore, Manx cats, which are unique to the Isle of Man, came about due to the mating of a hare and a cat, which is said to be evident in their no or stumpy tails and elongated legs, which gives them a hoppity gait. I think they’ll be a good addition to the paintings, as they, like hares, also suffer from bone/joint related aliments. Plus, who doesn’t like the odd cat in a painting.

You can never have too many books about hares!

CSM MFA - Progress Blog, Research Project, Week in Review

I am a fiend when it comes to buying books on subjects I love. Hares are no exception. I now have four and counting. As of this morning it would be five, as I came across a wonderful lecture about the Three Hares motif, and when I discovered that the lecturer had written a book on the subject, I thought it would be perfect for my collection. But alas, the book is now out of print and remaining copies are upwards of £140. 00. I like a hare book as much as the next lagamorphile, but that’s beyond extravagant. Thankfully there is a great website all about about the book, and even a form you can fill out if you’d like a copy of the book, so they can gage interest for a possible 2nd printing.

The Three Hares motif is very interesting and shows up in many places around the world, including a heap of churches in Devon, Synagogues in Europe, caves in China, and on various object in Iran. No one really knows what the motif means, but as with hares in general, is thought to be associated with magic, the moon, and femininity.

I am still painting hares, as well as bones and lace, and am still trying to figure out the confluence between the 3 motifs and the degree realism I want etc. Progress is slow, but I am enjoying the process.

I am also working on a painting made up of different sections, that when all put together will make one big painting. Its conception and composition is very similar to the big canvas painting I had to abandon. For some reason, painting separate sections makes it a lot easier to keep a handle on things. Also, this one is on paper, which is better than canvas for this kind of painting. Here is one of the sections I have been working on:

The life and times of Chicken-Geoff

CSM MFA - Progress Blog, Painting, Research Project, Week in Review

Chicken-Geoff, my fella’s name-sake, lives at my friend’s allotment. When he was born on my birthday last April, he was going to be called Rebecca, but the tell-tale yellow spot on his head indicated he was a male, so he was named Geoff.

Chicken-Geoff soon grew big and strong, due to his fondness for mealworms and treats. However, he was a gentle sort of fellow and would get pecked-on by the other cockerels, so it was thought best to put him in with the hens, where he soon made himself at home.

Chicken-Geoff adapted so well to life with the hens, that he recently took to the nesting box and laid an egg.

Along with Chicken-Geoff’s exciting news this week, I am pleased to say I have been running every day for Run 62 Miles in March for Cancer Research UK. So far, I have raised £450.00 which is well over my target. Of course, getting out of bed at 5.30 every morning hurts a little, but I wouldn’t feel too sorry for me, because this is where I am running:

Also, my lovely fella gave me some very fancy ear-pods, so I have been running along listening to Audible. I am currently listening to a series of lectures on The Pagan World, which I am thoroughly enjoying. The lecturer has a slow, methodical way of talking that makes him very easy to follow. I highly recommend the series for anyone interested in the subject.

Before the lecture series, I listened to a wonderful book about hares, and have bored my fella silly with what I’ve learned. I even had a dream last night that I was telling someone all about hares.

Yes, I am still nutty about hares, and can’t seem to get enough of them. To my utter delight, my fella and I saw a hare the other day. It was having a snack on the side of the road, and we managed to get a really good look at it. We then noticed a few more in a nearby field. They were too far away to get a really good photo, but if you zoom in, to the wee fella on the left, you’ll see his black-tipped ears, which means its a brown hare.

I have been busy in the studio painting untold hares. I am attempting to find the right balance between the different components of the paintings – i.e., hares, lace, water, bones.

I am also trying to figure out the level of detail I want in the hares themselves, so I am trying lots of different things. I really like having see-through passages of paint.

I am currently subscribing to the more is more philosophy of aesthetics. I am aware of the criticism that too much detail in a painting can be suffocating and that breathing space is important in a composition. However, I would counter that a sense of suffocation is precisely what I want in the paintings, to convey the sense of being underwater/drowning.

I’m desperate to see a hare!

CSM MFA - Progress Blog, Research Project

Spring has almost sprung, and top on my list of things to do this spring, is see a hare. My fella’s Pa saw one on the top field near our house, so I have a good chance of seeing one if I head out at dawn or dusk, keep down wind, hide behind a bush, be very quite, and don’t move. If I’m very lucky, I may even see them boxing, as it will be breeding season, and to fight off unwanted male attention, the females give the fellas a clip around the ears, quite right too!

Hares have become one of the central elements in my paintings, and the more I learn about them, the more they rightly deserve that place. There are currently 4 visual elements in the work that I am trying to weave together: Water, Bones, Lace and Hares. There are also two conceptual elements: Pain and Receptivity.

The Manx word for hare is cleaysh liauyr – which means good listener (also: slow to answer, forbearing person, long-eared). I love this meaning associated with the hare, and would like to incorporate it in my paintings somehow.

Hares are a very important animal in Manx folklore. They are associated with witches/wise women, or “they that have the charms” (as my Manx family do). Hares are also thought to be inhabited by the souls of old women. For this reason, as in other Celtic lands, hares are not to be eaten.

Here is a delightful recording of Johnny Crellin talking about Manx folklore regarding hares.

I’ve got the t-shirt, now I have to do it!

CSM MFA - Progress Blog, Research Project, Week in Review

The other day, while scrolling in bed, I came across an ad for the Cancer Research UK Run 62 Miles in March challenge, and in a bid to allay my napping-in-the-daytime guilt, I signed up. Post-nap, and failing to rope my fella into it, I considered not doing it, but then a Cancer Research t-shirt arrived today, so now I have to do it. To be honest, the t-shirt is a little snug, so, not only do I have to run 2 miles everyday in March, I also have another challenge – to fit the t-shirt by the end of it.

I have been all over the place with my painting this week. One minute I love the big painting and feel committed to finishing it, the next I think it’s going in the wrong direction, and I seriously consider abandoning it. I oscillate between these two points of view a few times a day. I am quickly approaching the point of no return, and will have to make a decision soon and stick with it.

In the mean time, I have been painting my folks.

My fella came home from his work travels last Monday. It is so lovely to have him back, though now he has a fancy job, we don’t have as much time for day drinking. A spot of day drinking and hearing each other’s newes is one of our fondest gettogethers. The most memorable occasion was the time we were in Tuscany, and we ordered a Moscow Mule – which is vodka and ginger beer and one of my favourite tipples. When relaying the recipe to our Italian waiter, something got lost in translation and he bought us a vodka and gin. Naturally, we drank it to be polite. Sure, it packed a punch, by the end of it, it didn’t taste too bad at all.

My bread and butter diet is a dud!

CSM MFA - Progress Blog, Research Project, Week in Review

Like most people riddled with Christmas-gorging remorse, my fella and I are on diets. We opted for different plans; my fella choosing Keto, and me, a bread and butter diet I designed myself. After sticking to our respective diets since New Year, my fella has lost 10lbs and I’ve put on 2.

I was back at school this week, and am quietly bricking it that there are only 19 weeks of term and a couple of weeks holiday left before it’s all over. I will be focused solely on my research project until the end, the main part of which is a large painting. I have been preparing for the painting the past few weeks, and am pleased to report that I finally started it this weekend.

It’s an ambitious painting, and there is no guarantee it will work. Currently, I am oscillating between hope that it will work, and freaking out that it won’t. The latter got the better of me this morning, and I bought a huge roll of paper so I can at least do some smaller paintings in case the big painting turns out to be a dud like my bread and butter diet.

To help improve my chances, my fella took me to a local river confluence so I could make an offering to the painting gods (assuming they hang out down there). It is the place that initially inspired my research project, and is one of my favourite places on the Island.

In other news, I am obsessed with hares at the moment. I love learning about them and drawing them…

…and painting them.

I haven’t seen one in the wild yet, even though they live close by, but I did see this handsome fellow in the Manx Museum the other day:

Such is my love of hares, I made a Wisdom Daily video about them last week.

Preparation is key

CSM MFA - Progress Blog, Painting, Research Project

Abraham Lincoln once said:

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

Most of my studio time this week was spent trying to figure out how I want to approach the painting for my research project. The canvas is primed and ready, but before I start I have to figure out how I mean to go on. To do this, I have been staring at the blank canvas, rummaging through the paintings I have done so far on the course, practicing techniques, reading books related to the topic of the painting, researching the life of the central figure of the painting, visiting the locations where the event to be depicted took place, going for long walks to spark my imagination, and taking naps in the hope the sleep fairies give me ideas.

Through all of this, a consistent image has been coming together as to the general layout of the painting. But the particulars and details will only emerge during the process of painting it. Normally when I conceive of a big painting, I have everything mapped out, and more less know where I am going with it, and what it will look like when I am finished. Approaching this painting with so many unknowns, and being willing to let it emerge organically, relying on instinct rather than design, is very scary.

The whole reason I wanted to do this masters course was to be challenged in my practice and gain the courage to attempt a new type of painting, so I only have myself to blame for my current predicament. I suspect once I start the painting, I will love the process. I am going to give myself a few more days of prep work (as above), and will begin the painting when my fella and I return from Scotland.

One person’s frog-drawing is another person’s procrastination

CSM MFA - Progress Blog, Research Project, Week in Review

I didn’t manage to write a post last week, as we had an assessment due which took up my writing time. Also, I’ve been whittling myself to a nub out here at Anam Cara, mostly trawling through online records, researching the subject of a painting I am planning for my final Research Project. It has to do with a well in Ballaragh, and a lady who ended up in it. It’s a fascinating story to research, with lots of avenues to go down. But while it’s thoroughly engrossing, it’s also very time consuming.

The best part of the research, is my fella taking me to the actual places where the events happened. I thought I’d found the well in question a few months back, and when my fella took me to revisit it this past weekend, I was astonished to see the someone is building a house on top of it. However, upon further research this week, it seems I may have been mistaken about its location, so we might have to do some more welling this weekend, which I’m sure will thrill my fella no end.

As well as welling, we had the opening for the Manx Museum exhibition recently. I meant to take lots of photos, but only managed some blurry ones of people standing around, such as this one of my fella holding my handbag, with my painting in the background.

Things have been a bit slow in the studio this past couple of weeks. I am very close to starting the painting for my final research project, in fact, the canvas is prepped and ready to go, I just have a few more test paints to do. I tell myself I am biding my time, but some might call it procrastinating, either way I have been drawing lots of frogs.

Plus, I painted this little fella the other day.

In the deep green sea

CSM MFA - Progress Blog, Experiments, Green, Research Project, Week in Review

I had a good week in the studio, and really enjoyed being back at school without the dreaded covid. I have a dual focus this term, namely, drawing and my research project. Even though my drawing has greatly improved, after focusing on it this summer, I now realise that when it comes to drawing, learning and improvement never ends. For this reason, I have signed up for a series of drawing workshops, joined a drawing club, and booked one on one sessions with a drawing tutor.

I have also kept up my morning drawing discipline, which this week has consisted of filling large pages with a variety of ink and watercolour drawings. I really enjoy this part of my practice, and try and keep it light and fun.

My paintings this week were sea-themed, no doubt influenced by my passionate love of Moby Dick, which I am still listening to on my walks to see the bobbers. I agree with Ray Bradbury’s assessment –

“Shakespeare wrote Moby-Dick, using Melville as a Ouija board.”

I also experimented with colour and detailing, with the hope that when I come to do the paintings for my research project, I’ll know the palette and detailing style I want to use.

On Friday night, my dear friends and I had one of our ladies-nights at our favourite cocktail bar, Fynoderee. We were two-women down from normal, but we still had a wonderful time. As you can see by the photo I took, I was a bit wobbly by the end of the night.

Back to school Covid blues

CSM MFA - Progress Blog, Research Project

My masters course resumed last week and I spent the majority of it with Covid. Thankfully, the worst of my symptoms had abated the previous week, but I was still self-isolating awaiting a negative test, which finally materialised on Saturday. Covid sucked, especially the night-time delirium and almost constant headache, but I have lived to tell the tale, so I didn’t do too bad.

Once I got over feeling crap, isolating at Anam Cara was actually quite wonderful. I napped indiscriminately, received treat-laden grocery deliveries from my lovely fella, painted loads, and went for long walks to see the bobbers (my collective noun for seals). They are pupping at the moment at the tip of the Point of Ayre. I am very careful not to get too close, but even seeing them all hauled out from a distance is a real joy.

Increasing my bobber-walk-joy tenfold this past week has been listening to Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. What a stunningly magnificent book! I have been listening to it because of a beautiful poem I read by Hart Crane, called Melville’s Tomb. I have been reading quite a bit of Crane’s poetry of late, in relation to one of the paintings I am planning for my research project. Crane’s poetry had a lot of detractors during his lifetime, which broke his heart, but now of course he is hailed as an American great, though his poetry is still considered difficult. Personally, I think its wonderful, and my sojourn into his inner world, and the world of Melville has been moving and deeply inspiring.

I am still at the experimental stage with the painting, and have mostly been focused on the kind of detailing I want to use, as well as figuring out the various elements of the painting, such as the imagery below which is based on a dream he had.

I have ordered what looks to be an excellent biography about about him, which I am hoping will help me narrow down and select the elements of the painting I would like to include. Frustratingly, Amazon lost the first copy I ordered, so I am now waiting for them to resend it. I’ll be writing more about Crane and the painting in the coming weeks. In the meantime, here is a video I made about him for my Wisdom Daily a couple of weeks ago.